Introduction:
Hello dear community, dear Nexon staff. My main character name is FrozenTrust7 from the old Khaini and now Elysium. I have been playing Maplestory since 2009. When we give suggestions to others, sometime they get the impression that what they done don't worth anything, especially when we talk about art, or more accurately in this case, a whole world crafted by mankind. So first thing to say is that the game is amazing. The universe is rich, community is nice, a story to follow, events, the graphics,the musics.the fact of giving suggestions mean that it worth the time to discuss it and not just ditch the game and leave. My sole purpose is to help improve the game that i love. now that i made my point, lets begin.
1) The repetitiveness kill the immersion
This problem can destroys every game, who supposed to be fun. If it get boring, the players just move to other games. The cycle of arcane river dailies, dailies bosses,and some daily grind to level up get tiring after only a few days. Every good thing have a beginning, a middle and sadly an end. For first, farm for years for the same arcane symbol is an error in my eyes.
Arcane river
Instead of repeating this ritual, here is what I propose: Keep the max level 20 of the symbols. But instead of the daily ritual mentioned above, create 20 epic quests, each with a unique goal, unique boss, unique conditions to fulfill. the reward of those quests will be the leveling up of your arcane symbol. The most important is that none of those quests will resemble each other in any point. To be concrete, here is an idea to perceive what it can look like with the vanishing journey arcane symbol : (I am stating level one, two, etc, but the order you choose to achieve those quests doesn't matters.
Level one: Keep the story as it. This is just good, and its a proof that if you want, you can do it.
Level two: Gather materials from all mobs in the map to add to your symbol to upgrade it. Not like the dailies sample that are exchanged for symbols, but materials that will fuse and power up your already existing symbol. To avoid frustration, the quantity and the drop rate should be reasonable, but not too easy either. Ad some narration on how this recipe was discovered, use the existing Arma, witch will flee at the fight of the original story instead of dying, a junior Arma cavern invasion for the last parts, Arma revenge, and there you have it. A long enough way to extend the game longevity with zero repetition. Don't forget to explain in the narration why this method works only once.
Level three: Kill mobs to gather Erda energy and let your symbol absorb it. According to the other quest, a reasonable amount is a number that will make you clear the other quests. most of it will happens anyway during the other quests, and the remaining monsters will allow you to grind a little to create some training immersion. It should be the way to reach level 20 maximum power.
Level four: The drop rate of arcane symbol is very rare. Its good. make it even rarer but powerful enough to upgrade a whole level. And this lead us to level four: the researcher found one symbol. she is ready to give it to you if you help her with her research. Take all the dailies that exist, do them since you need quest tree anyway, and get your reward.
Level five: Bring back the Erda world first immersion. remember how it was when you do your fifth job advancement? when you dive into that spiritual world and meet the goddesses? just create a reason to go back in there, create a level, long like black haven, clear it, and when you reach the end, sit there a few minutes to meditate and gather the energy around. It create a good immersion and an original and logic way to get more power.
The theme is epic , each step have to be very dramatic to create satisfaction when achieved. Even if i suggested 20 quests, I didn't propose more on purpose. I am not the only player, and maybe my ideas will not please everybody, and there is much more ways to do it. If this concept is pleasing you don't hesitate to comment and give your own ideas to such quests. The point is made. I will just add, that even if you have 20 levels, you should create at least 30 ways to upgrade your symbol, to create diversity. Diversity is another subject i will touch later on. And a last thought, of a story line point of view, why in the world arcane symbols need to absorb money to gather power? It hurts the game immersion.
Boring Bosses
Don't let the title mislead you. If maple story was a one time game, like most of adventure games, then the bosses are very good. they have mechanics, powers, graphics, everything is here. The problem is repeating the same thing over and over and over. That fact itself affect the immersion in the game. Because if i am the hero, and I killed him (got the achievement!), why is he still here? Don't worry, I am not saying to make endless disposable bosses, but instead a few ways to blur this question:
1) the simplest way is to just add a narration that describe how the black mage use his necromancer powers to resurrect those monsters/minions. If it monsters, they can be multiples Horntails. there are just a different being of the same species. This way nothing change in the game and we have our explanation.
2)Make them smarter. Create for each boss more than one set of mechanics, and make sure it don't repeat the one he used yesterday/last week. even two different sets will make a huge difference. imagine with three, or five? That will completely change the game, and those who just burst the boss before he have the chance to budge can still do it.
3)Make them unite. Why Cant Arkarium summon horntail? Why cant he, hilla and von leon fight alongside each other. that will create something big. If not related, like Damien and arkarium, or some non inteligent monsters like horntail and zakum (maybe, he never talked i mean). make them damage each other like a battle royal fight alongside the players party. instead of being able to choose those fights, those scenario can be part of the different mechanics listed above, for more story immersion.
That is my opinion about bosses.
Same grinding
I am aware that maple story is a grinding game. even if back in 2009-2010, i almost never grind. I preferred the lost Pq's that made players socialize, or other npc quests that rewarded experience.
for those who love to grind, The issue is addressed very well with bounty hunters portals(love the new one!, I hate fritto but this is my personal opinion), elite monsters, elite bosses, combo orbs, runes, quests. Like every good thing there is always place to make it better, and there are some suggestions from my experience:
1)A little nuance that I wish will be born is intermediaries combo orb between the red and the gold one. Following the pattern from 50 to 350 for purple and from 350 to 750 for red, one at 1200 and one at 1600 will be nice. That will of course increase the value of the golden one.
2) Bring back items like the potions you receive from the goddesses at your 5th job advancement. Its a variation to increase exp and the concept is fun.
3) Please create a way to take a bathroom pause without loosing your combo orbs streak
. Or sometime when you want to go to the event map to get some buffs,or change channel to a better burning one, or to avoid an elite boss because you can't kill him yet. It will be good if you could keep your combo counter. It can be a potion or a pill that "Guarantee your combo counter will not drop for 5 minutes, even if you exit the map,or change channel".
4)bring back frenzy items, or remove all of them. The current situation create a mono-pole of a few players that have a huge advantage over the others. Honestly i don't want to hurt they profit, so give us an equal opportunity to access those items.
As mentioned earlier i am pretty satisfied with the grinding system as it is now. The only problem is repetitiveness, and my ideas to epic unique quests from above address that pretty well.
2)A lack of diversity
Job skills choice restricted
Again, don't let the title mislead you. The jobs pool is huge, and alongside the branches of each job (except the heroes that have only one predetermined path to follow) give you the choice to create your own path. My favorite job was always a mage, they are smart, and in term of game, glass canons. So as a player who enjoy mages, I would like to could experience other builds. For example, use combinations like ice/fire, or a fire/lighting, summon the opposite element Elquine, like it was in 2008,learn healing magic instead of some useless 2nd job skills, add light or dark magic, or summon magic. Create my own combination from all the magic skills available. I don't want a salad like in other games, where you see a swordsman cast magic or a thief suddenly use a bow, but more diversity inside the title of Warrior, Magician,Bowman,Thief and Pirate. That made me remember the "Sindit" build, when peoples used lucky seven at first job and then became bandits. I want to have the possibility to experience and meet peoples with different builds.iT will be very interesting to see other players opinion about that.
3)Only one perfect gear possibility
this time it's all in the title. After you learn about the equips, you have only one best option than outclass the others. Arcane, CRA, Tyrant cape, gollux set. I wish to have more option that not result in lack of knowledge or money, but with true meaningful pro and cons. Like a greedy set that clearly have better drop and mesos rate but lack in power.
or a set made for the sole purpose of boss slaying, while lacking a multiple targeting, or a set for grinding witch increase damage on normal monsters and add some targeting. i know you can play with this stuff with potential, but its so far from the casual player that its almost not exist. more critical rate and damage paired with attack speed, or more damage but less critical. Again, this exist in Staff vs Wand, but nobody use wand because it just don't worth it. If the speed attack was two time faster, even with more penalty in power, it had make it worth having both, wand for grinding and staff for bossing. More possibilities to create different worthy styles instead of only one way to do it good.
4) Bring back the PQ's
Maybe its nostalgia talk, but I remember how peoples used to queue in monster carnival, trade wins, cheat on trade win, kerning pq, the moon bunny pq with the smuggle technique, ludi pq that required 6 peoples to enter. It's a whole universe of possibilities that has been lost. The access to those pq's still exist, but no one go there because there is no reason too. even the Erda spectrum and hungry Muto have the option to be made solo, so nearly no one team up once they strong enough. The newly added extreme monster park is an example of what i am talking about. As for the other pq's, if the reward was worthy in term of unique gear (as mentioned in the section above) and exp, people will gather there like in old time. I respect peoples that love to only grind, but I want the possibility level up in another way to exist. Pq's bring in teamwork, goal to get a good item, solve a riddle or a puzzle, they feel like dungeons. I am not the first to mention this so I think the point is made.
5) Bring the option to eliminate other players
You bought an exp accumulation potion, mvp coupon, 2exp coupons from event, your perfect grind is just ready. You start when BAM!, someone stronger than you come and eliminate you. That will bring a spice of life to the game. It will give guilds and parties a new purpose: to protect you from such occurrence.It will create mercenaries, high level players that defend you from any attacks. It will create competition for good maps, let you loot your opponent, another way to win exp, create concepts like revenge, war, truce, alliance between guilds. It will be harder to play I agree, maybe its this hardness that will make the game much more realistic. They will of course be safe zones, and your equipped untradeable items will require a scissor of karma to severe your bond with it in order to get looted. This will change the whole game. What do you think?
conclusion
From my many years of playing, those are the main ideas I wish will be implemented in the game. What do you think of all of it? Do you have any other suggestion and idea you wish will be added to the game? The discussion about it is equally important to the changes themself, because that is what make us a community, and only from our argument we can create a clear majority that Nexon will hopefully listen. And again, claiming changes dont mean that the game is bad, it just mean that I so love the game that I want it to be even better.
I can't wait to read your comments, FrozenTrust7, Elysium. 01.26.2023
Comments
As much as everyone hates dailies, they're actually what keeps the game alive and active.
It's an addictive feature designed to get you to log in.
The Arcane River symbols are fine. They don't take "years" to finish, they take months.
You can already speed this process up by either doing the minigames or events.
It would be a huge waste of resources to overhaul content that it already working and on the way out in the story.
The last thing nexon should do after having spent 5 years on Arcane River is go back to it instead of putting all their resources into Grandis.
Again, with bosses, Nexon has finished this content already.
They don't really need to go back to update old content that is currently working unless it's flawed in some manner.
Repeating the boss isn't some kind of story flaw or something. You can easily suspend disbelief and know that it's just part of the game.
Adding an element to a game simply because "Well that's not realistic" or "That doesn't make sense" is bad game design 101.
You want to add things because they're fun, not because they make the story make sense. Fun first, story second.
Fighting bosses over and over is part of the fun. MapleStory is an MMO designed for long term progression and bosses are part of that.
There is plenty of content in the game for the 200-275 range. We need more 275+ content.
I think a better change would be to scale the golden orb to a better value. The difference between blue, purple and red is pretty wide.
Purple being worth 200% more than Blue, Red being worth 300% more than Purple, but gold only being worth 100% more than Red.
I think increasing gold orbs to 1400% instead of 1100% would be a logical change.
Potions that you have to charge before you can drink them would be a small twist on the "Kill 2000 mobs for this event" thing nexon usually does.
Combo orbs don't usually account for much of your EXP gained.
They can for certain classes but for most classes the EXP lost won't be that much for building your combo back up.
Nexon wants these dead. They can't remove them or they'll piss off players that have them. They can't add more because that increases the problem.
The best thing for Nexon to do is to slowly remove the need to totem before ultimately deleting or changing their function. Similar to what they did with Kanna.
If you want diversity play a different class.
There are already a ton of different classes to play and Nexon already has enough trouble balancing them.
Multiple build paths will almost always result in a "best choice" type thing. Just look at what hyper passives turned into.
If you want more class diversity between the same class, the first place to look would be the already added hyper passsives.
Please no. It's hard enough to keep up with 3 sets of accessories. I don't want to add armor sets and weapon sets on top of this.
This is nostalgia. Nexon has had several events where they forced players to do the old PQs and it was a nightmare to find anyone who would actually do them with you.
This was on reboot mind you so I imagine on reg servers it was next to impossible. There was reward for doing the PQs, it's just nobody cared enough to do them.
The fact is that players don't want to PQ outside of bosses. MPE is yet another experiment by nexon to revive party play content.
MPE is a bit different because people already do MP daily and it's easy enough to find 3 players who are willing to spend a few minutes extra in a place they already go.
No no no, absolutely not. MapleStory isn't a PVP game. It isn't designed for a PVP market.
This kind of change would kill MapleStory overnight. You have to understand what the majority of players want and Nexon's ability to implement features.
If you want this kind of game, just go play a PVP game that was marketed towards players who want PVP.
If I am playing because I have to, its negative. I want to have fun, to relax, to live an adventure. I want to know what happen next, I want to get the next upgrade. Those are the feelings I want when playing a game, and that feeling of achievement is created by the progressive advancement toward a goal. Its work well with story lines, gear gathering, and especially when you upgrade yourself and gain power-ups along your adventure. The way you win those power-ups doesn't have to be daily and repetitive.
By the way, you mentioned the addictive features. . As mentioned earlier, I want to play from positive feelings. Too much addictive features like limited time exp events, temporary mega burning, insane exp potions limited by time and level, legion system, link skill system, exp coupons that work on timer and not on monster kill counter, random cubing system. All of those are made only to make you sit on your chair much more time than what you may have planned.
It is okay to play with this on your players community, but it have to be a tool along with many other elements. You can't build your whole game only around this. Because when abused, It can easily lead to stress, frustration, obsession, and the worste thing for a game company: temporary or permanent quit. To be concrete, I threw away one mega burninator and two extreme growth potions to put the limit.
As for the waste of resources, if you read well what I suggested, my idea consist on adding content, and not delete existing content, except some minor graphic change, its using the existing data in another way. Otherwise, it will be another game.
Overhaul working content. nexon already did that. Look at all the classes and scrolling revamps for example, and NLC completely destroyed. It certainly take more work and time, and it happened multiple times. The worst thing in overhauling content is how the pre-arcane river don't worth a penny anymore. They give you so many crazy items to ruch toward level 200 (even 250 recently!) and join the other players. Unfortunately so many content of stories and entire regions are skipped for that sake. Compared to some quests implementation, I think its minor.
If Grandis had a different system, will it be something like what I suggested or something completely different, I would agree with you. But the problem with Grandis, is that its going exactly the same way that arcane river did. To finish to collect circles only to collect more circles at a different region with a different name. At this point It may be perceived as laziness development. Its look like repetitiveness is really a sacred symbol in maplestory.
I want to clear a point. I am not talking about realistic in the way that dragons and magic doesn't exist so what are they doing here. I am talking about when you create a universe and set in rules, you have to respect them. Imagine a fire pokemon using water moves, or in maplestory terms, a mage using bows and arrows (not like Bishops but literally), or suddenly leveling up from killing a snail when you are level 250. If this will happen it will not be realistic according to the universe rules, and thats what i meant when I mentioned endless undead bosses. It's like you set a rule that water burn and fire cool in your universe, when you are completely illogical in according the rules you set for your universe , you hurt the player game immersion. Invisible walls, or fake walls ,are good example for game immersion hurting.
You wrote: "Adding an element to a game simply because "Well that's not realistic" or "That doesn't make sense" is bad game design 101."
I forgot to say nice to meet you earlier. overall I enjoyed reading your comment. So, you will have to excuse me, but this sentence is wrong. in fact, the exact opposite is the essence of game, story and scenario designing. Adding an element to a game because otherwise it's not realistic (according to the created universe rules) and that doesn't make sense is an excellent game design.
Then you mentioned: "Fun first, story second".
This on the other hand is not wrong, but it is not true either. It's arguable. It depend on personal preference, and game design. For example, some arcade games have absolutely no sense, no story, zero of those. it's just crazy fast manipulations and combos, and this is exactly the purpose of those games. Look at mario maker, it's exactly the summary of that.
Adventure games are on the opposite. You have to follow a good story, immerse yourself in a whole other world with rules, races, nations, fantastic or futuristic creatures and creations. Discovery, exploration, plot twists, personally this is the reason i am gaming. this is the magic I am seeking for. An excellent example is the witcher 3. It is novel based, and you feel it in every step you do.
Maplestory is clearly a mmorgp. It has to be immersive. If you truly see it exactly like an arcade game, and there is no difference for you when you play the event mini game to get exp or killing the black mage to get exp, I can respect that but i cant feel it like this myself. In addition they put so much work on the story that it proof they want it to be good, and this why I suggested at least this narration add.
As for level 275+ content. I don't have a character at those levels yet, but I can fell you. I remember when arcane river had new maps only every 10 levels. It was hell. they did a good job adding more stories and variation, and it worked, so why not continue but with bigger variation like in the solutions mentioned above?
Or both. The graduality or the rarity dilemma. I simply thing more colors is more fun.
As it become more clear as I write ( I hope), my opinion narrative is variation and immersion. If those two elements can bring in more players and make the older stays, why not. Especially when it's a little twist that doesn't require much work. I think they will not do it because it's like an exp coupon that not stress you, so you may play less time in your session.
I worked hard to get Aran combo skill. 900% more exp *1100% or 200% is huge. and even if you don't have the boost, why punish you for going to bathroom? Again, it's the stress politics that want to stick you to your chair.
That smart. I haven't seen it this way. Thank you.
I am seeking diversity because it lead to immersion. if i were a real mage, I would like to experience different kind of magic. A for the best choice type, with the existing data it's easy to clearly make best choice for mobing, bossing or farming. Take poison/ice and you will be a grind god. Take fire/lightning and you will be a boss killer but loose the critical boost that ice grants lightning, take bishop/battle mage auras to create the ultimate support but lack in power. (I put mage in my examples but it is true for all classes) they all excellent best choice for they purpose.
hyper passive were made in a way when you can or make a mistake or make it right, not gain true advantage of your choice.
And for class balancing, It's already non existent. there are already best classes and classes that are just bad.
You don't have to, but you could.
looks like sometime we have to move on. I don't know if peoples just changed or the massive leveling almost cheat items lead to this. According to what you saw in the event, If it is as it, i have nothing to add. Just hope that maybe a new pool of player will come in and make it live again. But for this the reward have to be worthy.
This the whole point of this topic. I am mentioning options that I find good, to check If the majority agree, or give a better choice, and hope that the global wish will become true. "
I agree with this, Nexon is trying to get people to login daily in order to create a community that you can rely on. At least that's my interpretation of it.
I personally think they could get away with weekly quests or at least quests that you complete several times a week in order to maximize your gains.
This way players could grind out the "7 days" worth of stuff out in a single day if they had the time to do that.
It's a less stressful system and gives players a lot more flexibility.
In the case of classes, it's to refresh content. I can agree with that because players are still playing said content.
In order for Nexon to overhaul things there needs to be a problem with the way the current content works.
For classes this was an easy and obvious flaw, new classes had an entirely different design feel to old classes.
They updated the old classes to play more like new classes by changing a few minor things or in some cases, major overhauls like bishop recieved.
Honestly I think they didn't go far enough in some cases. I don't disagree with you that overhauling content can be good, I just disagree on the content you're asking to be overhauled.
I think the problem with Arcane River is the frequency of dailies, not the content itself.
However Nexon is making changes to some of this content in the coming months so they're at least a little bit aware of the problem.
On removing content, if next to nobody is playing it, I can agree with removing it, there is no reason for nexon to be forced to maintain dead content.
Dead content results in extra things to manage. If nobody is enjoying this content to being with there's no reason for this.
This is where you have to decide if you want to overhaul the content or remove it. Sadly for the case of GMS, a lot of this is going to be "Just remove it".
Korea has no strong feelings about this content because they don't have it in their version. With other dead content in the game such as the pre-200 areas, Nexon and the players have attachment to this content because it's important to the story and it's in their version of the game. So even if it's dead they're likely to leave it in regardless.
The system works and gets players to play daily. Until Nexon decides that it's more important to engage players than get them to login daily, this isn't likely to change.
I don't think a change is a bad idea, but from Nexon's perspective there's little to no reason to change it.
Not exactly. It isn't "realistic" in any game that allows grinding for stuff to continue to come back time and time again. Why does the grass grow back in Zelda after I go into a house? That doesn't really obey the rules of the universe. Some grass grows back while you watch it while other grass doesn't. It's that way because they needed it that way for game design. The undead boss thing is a minor issue that most players won't be bothered with since the fun is in fighting the boss or farming for rare items.
I would argue that it's not arguable.
When a game puts a major focus on story, such as say, a visual novel... The story IS the fun.
The "fun" is still coming before the story because the "fun" of the story was considered first.
Fun is the ultimate goal of any game as that's what keeps a player playing.
The "fun" is subjective which is why it comes before story, even if the story is the fun itself.
As for the game design bit, keeping a set of rules in your game design is fine. But I'm talking about going out of your way and placing your game's "realism" in front of "because it's fun" is bad game design. Think about the fun first, everything else second. There's no need for maplestory to explain the undead boss thing because it's something most players will not care about and it's fun. You're over explaining a feature of the game that nobody will think twice about because plenty of other games do it.
Here lies a major problem with Nexon. They have to keep the game fun, but they also want players to play for long periods of time.
It makes the game world feel more alive (populated with players) and allows them to show higher numbers to share holders.
It's a balancing act and one that they don't perform very well for the western market imo. Korean priorities are very different from western ones.
They are at least getting a little better at is as time goes on imo.
I personally see this as glass half empty.
You weren't punished for going to the bathroom, you were rewarded for grinding for a long period of time.
This is like those players who complain that they weren't able to play in an event and they're being punished for not playing during the event.
It's not that you were punished, it's that other players were rewarded.
Nexon is horrible about making events last too short or long and requiring too much effort before rewards are given out, but that's an entirely different topic.
Now you have the same problem. Except it's even worse.
Within classes there are now best builds available to do certain things rather than your class just being well rounded for all tasks available.
Adding this in just makes class balance even harder which you admit Nexon is already bad at, you're making the problem worse for them and thus, for players.
I think the problem with the events were you're forcing high level players to seek low level content. MPE works imo because it's high level content with high level rewards. This quickly becomes a daily problem though. Now players are going to feel more stressed because it's yet another thing for them to juggle or login to get done. I think a better answer is actually just "Let players grind when they want to."
Increasing the benefits of party play to not be awful is a good alternative to this because you could just find a party any time you felt like it rather than being limited to "X times per day" or having to look for a party.
If you wanted to grind in a party, you'd just go to a map that had the extra EXP for being in a party. If you didn't, you'd go to a normal map.
Fair, but I think you should take a few minutes to think about it from a standpoint of a business as well.
You don't throw a curveball into something that already works. Neither players nor your company is going to want that.
It would be better to just take an idea like that and try it with a new market to see if there's enough ground to hold.
Similar to how they developed MapleStory 2 instead of turning MapleStory into it.
Thank you. I'm not trying to be mean or shoot down ideas here. Nor am I trying to be a white knight for Nexon.
I'm just trying to have a nice blend of personal opinion and logical reasoning on/for Nexon's decisions.
Hi Mr. Owen and the Whole Team of Nexon.
I'm very sad about how maplestory the game has become. I really miss my party quests on maplestory. Every level that I get I had my party quest to go for for leveling up. Grinding in the game is not fun, you can get exp, but doing party quest you get good exp and everyone is getting fun. That is the main point why party quest is very important to every little thing and most of our children of age of 10+ years. Maplestory become business one part it is very good and don't have any problem with that. But the way of having mesos to buy particular things in FreeMarket is ok too. If every character don't need to use HP and MP pots because of killing monsters that is very good to add in it. Imagine that I begin with maplestory since I was a child and now I'm a grown man already and I was telling the kids of 10 years how maple was in the year 2000 it was very fun with the party quest of keringCity, hennesys the one of Ludi-party quest and so on. Now the kids really want to experience it too. Party Quest should never have been taking out from maplestory because it was so fun to play and win Exp with friends.
I hope Mr. Owen can put everything back as it was like before. Party quest in every cities and traveling with those awesomes transporters.
You can let the business keep going that people , but think on the children that want to play for fun and have a nice day getting and winning their party quests. Not everything is business , remember that the children is the future. And as they see there is party quest and having fun they will always want to play maplestory.
This is my concern and I'll be very greatful to get a answer soon of Mr. Owen and decide to put the party quest back in maplestory and everyone will be happy. The businesd guys in the game and the children playing their party quest and for free.
Sincerely,
Emanuel